1. Field of the Invention
The subject disclosure relates to systems for providing high quality power, and cooling and more particularly to an improved system for providing uninterrupted DC power for the telephone communications, data processing and industrial equipment.
2. Background of the Related Art
Traditionally, AC commercial power has been used as the primary power source for a wide variety of applications such as computers, data processing equipment, telephony circuitry and other solid state technology devices. Despite this proliferation of the use of AC power, various problems are well-known. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,277,692; 5,126,585; and 5,483,463 disclose practices for improving the performance of AC power devices. Despite these improvements, many drawbacks to the AC power still have not been overcome. In particular, AC power must still be converted to DC power for consumption by the majority of solid state devices. Many AC power systems require battery backup and second 100% rated redundant feeds and are still inefficient at supplying the necessary power and redundancy. Further, the safety risk, bulkiness and expense of distributing AC power is well documented.
Many have always considered DC to be more efficient and reliable. However, the prior ability to produce DC power and scale distribution thereof has been a hurdle yet to be overcome. Typically, chemical batteries and rectifiers are utilized to produce, distribute and backup critical DC power. Batteries in such applications have many limitations. When the batteries age, capacity reduces to the point of requiring replacement that creates a disposal problem. Further, the ability to produce and draw large amounts of power from a DC battery system is dependant upon the amount and size of the batteries and require large distribution systems as DC distribution systems are oversized for DC voltage drop. Modern technology demands more power, requiring a higher concentration of DC power to reach a higher level of operation.
Despite these and other drawbacks, use of chemical batteries has been widely used in to produce and store 48V DC power, in telecommunication centers and to provide an alternative backup source for AC voltage systems during power outages in data centers. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,469 to Bobry, in which batteries are used and which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety to the extent that it does not conflict with the present disclosure. Moreover, switching between sources is a recognized problem and often incurs momentary lapses in provision of the power needed. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,697 to Hammond et al. which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety to the extent that it does not conflict with the present disclosure.
In the past no technology has been available to economically produce and distribute highly reliable high capacity DC power for use in both centers. The use of DC quality power is much more reliable, inexpensive and would result in tremendous saving of power so it would be extremely desirable to extensively utilize scaleable DC power. However, as a result of not being able to scale DC power much like an AC transformer for distribution, technology dependent upon ready access to DC power has stagnated. Therefore, a system is needed to produce DC voltage that is highly reliable, scalable and economical utilizing AC and DC components without the use of chemical storage batteries.
Moreover, prior art systems have required large amounts of wiring and conditioning equipment for electrically interconnecting the AC voltage source with the load. Typically, the electrical interconections are quite bulky and require a large amount of copper. In data center and telco applications, switch mode power supplies (“SMPS”) on the servers are fed by AC but have the capability of being powered by DC only. Theses AC driven SMPS generate heat and draw significant power and are very inefficient. As a result of the high heat generation and a limited amount of cooling capacity, data processing equipment must be spread out to facilitate proper cooling, therefore data centers have less space for processing equipment and an overall decreased cooling load efficiency. Thus, there is a need for a system which provides the necessary power and can be interconnected with relatively small interconnections and operate without SMPS in order to increase the efficiency of the data center.